Cold Snap. Don Pendleton

in invasions of privacy and propriety that they accused their liberal counterparts of doing.

      Schmied had an enemy of his country, moving in close, assuming that he was clueless.

      So Schmied would feed the bastard all the rope he needed. And, in the process, an economic powerhouse that had drained American money for decades would end up crippled. He had little doubt a political rival would take the blame, forcing the United States to become stronger, to stand up under its own power.

      “I suppose you’ll be needing something to show Iran as a victim, as well,” Schmied said.

      “We have something in line for that,” Lee answered.

      “Just make certain it’s clean,” Schmied told him. “We’re skating a dangerous edge here.”

      The Chinese “businessman” nodded in agreement. “Don’t worry.”

      Schmied bristled. “Don’t worry” was the lie spoken by a man seeking to undermine you; a deception intended to disarm and leave vulnerable. The day that Schmied wouldn’t worry was to be the minute he stopped breathing.

      Lee’s breathing would end long, long before that.

      * * *

      THE D.C. METRO POLICE were all too cooperative with Carl Lyons, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz as the three men of Able Team arrived on the scene. The flash of Justice Department Special Agent badges garnered cooperation from the police who’d turned this stretch of side street into a crime scene.

      Lyons, the Able Team leader, was a big man; six feet in height, fair hair contrasting against weathered skin that was drawn tautly across a broad-shouldered, muscular frame. The former Los Angeles police officer had very little body fat and his jacket was cut perfectly so that he could conceal a pair of powerful handguns—a Smith & Wesson .45 auto in a shoulder holster and an alloy-framed, 8-shot .357 Magnum revolver tucked into a pancake holster—just behind his right hip. Lyons was not someone who was known for taking half measures, and though he regretted leaving the long guns behind in the Able Team van, the two big guns were backed up by two Airweight revolvers, a knife around his neck, with another folding blade in his trousers’ pocket and a Taser in a cross-draw holster.

      Just because the violence had exploded and faded only a couple of hours before did not mean lightning would not strike twice.

      Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz was smaller than Lyons, shorter by two inches, but lighter than the former football player by a good piece. Schwarz was the definition of average, everything spectacular about him hidden beneath slender limbs, brown hair and brown eyes. Schwarz had been part of the elite U.S. Army Rangers, but his physique was one of sleekness and efficiency. He had strength in his arms and legs, but it was not tied up in the same bulging, rippling mass of musculature that the Able Team leader’s bulk was carved from. Even so, Schwarz’s greatest ability was his mind. He was a certified genius, having a vast array of scientific skills, being versed in areas of expertise as diverse as nanotechnology and various Eastern Tao’s.

      Lyons likened Schwarz to a hyperactive puppy, always throwing himself into each new project with glee and boundless energy. Whether it was designing a new homing system for a missile, hacking features in computer and telephone operating systems or discussing philosophy with Blancanales, Schwarz was rarely calm and still. Even when he said not a word, the genius was thinking, observing, applying his intellect with the skill and precision of a surgeon, dissecting the universe around him down to the last molecule.

      Rosario Blancanales was the eldest of the three men. He looked older thanks to his weathered features, displaying more wrinkles than the others and his premature gray-white hair. However, doubts of the man’s fitness for duty were dispelled by watching him move with grace and energy. Smooth of tongue and easy in manner, Blancanales often served as the spokesman and the negotiator for Able Team, earning him the dubious title of “Politician.” Blancanales had been through the Green Berets’ Robin Sage, and while he was no slouch in the application of force and violence, he was also masterful in the use of diplomacy and conversation.

      Able Team possessed a dynamic of mind, body and spirit that turned the trio into one of the finest covert action teams in the world.

      Once more, Lyons looked at the chalk outlines of murdered brothers behind the badge. D.C. cops and Secret Service personnel had lost their lives while attempting to prevent the cold-blooded murders of a group of reactionary protesters irate at Japan’s appeal to the White House in the court of world opinion.

      Lyons and Schwarz did not need to determine what to look for as they surveyed the site of the massacre. They’d been through this too many times, applying their knowledge, picking up hints and clues as to whom or what could have been behind the attack.

      Certainly the Secret Service detail had given some details of the attackers, but Schwarz had military experience that allowed him to see things outside the box that law enforcement could think of. Hell, Schwarz had experience that allowed him to survey a battle and pick up almost impossible details thanks to his razor-sharp mind.

      The whole universe was a box the genius could maneuver around and examine, peering into individual compartments and collating them with the barest threads of coincidence.

      In the meantime Lyons had been to more than enough murder scenes to have an intuitive feel for the kind of attackers. Already he had a sense of focused rage. The men behind the attack were disciplined, firing short bursts, staying in cover and never staying still long enough to become a target. But there was something extra here. There was an underlying anger, a hatred of the protesters that went beyond the need to create dead bodies for the sake of a political message.

      Lyons could tell just by looking at the wound patterns on the bodies in CSI digital photographs transmitted to his tablet.

      It was one thing to shoot a man to end his life.

      It was another to destroy the face of a human being, or to ravage the genitals of another with gunfire. There was both racial and sexual rage at work.

      The three black men who were victims of gunfire—two protesters and one D.C. policeman—had been shot, but then also laid into with gunfire that shredded their genitalia. Lyons also noticed the destruction of the breasts of each of the women who had been shot. Five total. One woman survived by the grace of being hit from the side, the curve of her ribs deflecting bullets from her internal organs.

      Lyons clenched his jaw.

      The FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit investigators were going over the scene and Lyons stood with them. The back and forth showed a level of violence reserved for hate crimes. Whoever was involved in the shootings had wanted to emasculate the black men in their sights, but at least two of the shooters displayed a deep misogyny, attacking the most feminine parts of the female protesters’ anatomy.

      Schwarz came closer to Lyons and the two Able Team investigators got to talking.

      “This looks like a coordinated military assault,” Lyons said.

      “Looks like it indeed,” Schwarz replied. “You’ve noticed the precision of the shooting, even in the instances where they’re punishing their targets of opportunity.”

      Lyons nodded.

      “The shooters have great marksmanship, but there’s cruelty in there,” Schwarz admitted. “This wasn’t typical combat. I’m betting you noticed the injuries on the blacks and the women?”

      “BSU is in agreement,” Lyons told him.

      Schwarz shook his head. “The vibe of this attack is all wrong for a hired kill. It’s something pretty damned sick. These aren’t ex-military, but they have been organized by a military mind. Their commander has found a hatred he could focus into a tool of opportunity.”

      “Paramilitary group. Not private security—too many of them are actual military or police. Someone with this kind of bigoted rage is not going to last too long on a force or in the service with that bubbling below the surface,” Lyons said.

      Schwarz